Joint Research Groups in the UK
Objectives: To provide support to research groups of mathematicians to enable them to engage in collaborative activities through holding regular meetings. Groups should be made up of mathematicians who are working in at least three different locations and who have a common research interest.
Eligibility:
- Applicants can be any mathematician based in the UK, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.
- Please note that PhD students are not eligible to apply for a Joint Research Groups grant but can apply to the Postgraduate Conference Grant Scheme to support conferences organised by PhD students for PhD students.
- Applications should be made by a nominated “grant-holder”, who will be responsible for the use of the grant.
- Applications must have the support of collaborators from at least two further institutions.
- Non LMS members will need to ask an LMS member to support the application.
Criteria:
- At least two of the three (or more) institutions making up the group must be in the UK, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands. Applicants might wish to include Ukraine institutions as virtual nodes within the application.
- International nodes can be included in the Joint Research Group.
- There should be genuine involvement from all three (or more) institutions in the group, and the Society normally would expect meetings to be held at each of the institutions in rotation.
- It is expected that the meetings will be open to all.
- It is expected that meetings will be advertised to research students and young postdoctoral mathematicians, and that every effort will be made to encourage participation by them.
- The Committee may ask for exceptionally strong cases to be made where there is geographical and subject overlap between different Scheme 3 applications, or between the Scheme 3 application and an existing research network.
Value of award:
- The maximum award is £1,500 to cover meetings over one year. The grant must be claimed within the same financial year that the grant is awarded.
- Grant applicants can apply for funds to host at least two meetings (or an equivalent level of activity) in a financial year. The Research Grants Committee will no longer require grant holders to hold four meetings per year (though they are still permitted to do so).
- A grant may be used to support the activities of the group, and normally would be used to cover the expenses of speakers and or participants (eg travel, accommodation, subsistence, caring, online support (e.g. software licences and subscriptions, tech support hardware (where necessary)). NB the grant to support Joint Research Group activities may not be used to pay speakers' honoraria.
- Hybrid meetings - the grant can be used to contribute towards the costs of running meetings, including contributing towards caring costs for those attending remotely. Further guidance about running hybrid events and how these can be supported by an LMS grant is available here.
Reports
Please note that a condition of these grants is that reports are submitted.
All reports are due by 30 September each year.
Deadlines and decision timetable:
Applications should be submitted well in advance of the date of the first meeting.
|
Application Deadline |
Decision Date |
|
30 September |
October |
Queries regarding applications can be addressed to the Grants Administrator or the Chair of the Research Grants Committee, who will be pleased to discuss proposals informally with potential applicants and give advice on the submission of an application.
Grants Administrator: Lucy Covington Email: grants@lms.ac.uk
Chair of the Research Grants Committee: Professor Amanda Turner
Application Form:
To submit an application, you must be logged into your user account or registered as a user.
- Online Application Form (You must be logged in to access the form)
- Guidance Notes
- Guidance on Supporting Hybrid Meetings
Other Sources of Funding. Applicants to the LMS Joint Research Group (Scheme 3) Grant Scheme may also wish to note that, in addition to applying to the LMS for funds, the Isaac Newton Institute also supports networks of mathematical researchers throughout the UK through its new funding stream "INI Network Support for the Mathematical Sciences". INI awards range from £5,000 - £25,000 and applications are open to all with two deadlines each year, 31 January and 31 July. More information is available here.
List of Joint Research Groups currently supported by LMS Grants:
Current Joint Research Groups supported by LMS Grants in 2024/25
Other sources of funding:
Information about other funding offered by other organisations can be found here.
LMS Caring Costs Policy
The LMS wishes to enable carers and parents to take part in the activities that it supports. Applicants for grants across Schemes 1-9, for Early Career Research activities or who will run Society Meetings can request funding to help mathematicians with caring or parenting responsibilities to participate in their activities. In addition, individuals requiring support for caring to attend conferences, workshops, research schools and meetings or to make research visits - not necessarily organised by LMS - can apply for a Caring Supplementary Grant to contribute to such costs.
The Policy is available here.
Testimonials
"I was the Principal Investigator for a LMS-funded Bath-Oxford-Strathclyde, and then the Durham-Oxford-Strathclyde network on anisotropic materials, from 2018-2022. This network has several successes to its credit, which have been facilitated by the generous and flexible support offered by the LMS. The network hosted a total of eight research meetings in different locations - Bath, Oxford, Durham and Strathclyde, with participants and speakers from different UK institutions, France, Italy, India, Mexico and the USA. The network was also highly interdisciplinary, with participants from applied mathematics, physics, chemistry and engineering, and the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of the LMS network strongly assisted with applications for larger network grants. I now lead two large UK networks in my field, supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Isaac Newton Institute, with co-investigators from other Scottish and UK institutions, Italy and China. I strongly recommend applying for LMS grants since they often give the much-needed pump-priming funding for exploratory networks and projects in the mathematical sciences, and the LMS staff are hugely supportive of the community." – Apala Majumdar, Strathclyde
"An LMS scheme 3 grant has allowed a collection of universities (currently Bristol, Cambridge, London, Oxford and Warwick) to hold regular one-day meetings in the general area of additive and analytic number theory for a number of years, averaging two a year. These have provided excellent opportunities for young researchers to meet others in the area, and for all participants to hear about the latest developments, which come thick and fast." – Prof. Ben. J Green, Oxford
“The Yorkshire and Midlands Category Theory Seminar (YaMCATS), supported by the LMS Joint Research Group scheme since 2014, provides a regular opportunity for members of the UK Category Theory community, in both Mathematics and Computer Science, to meet and exchange ideas. This is particularly valuable for early-career researchers, since it allows them to present their work in a setting that is more informal than a conference and gives them a chance to connect with each other”. – Dr Nicola Gambino, Manchester